Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen.
Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 2 Timothy 2:14,16, 23 (NIV)
Wendy and I peruse the news each morning over coffee and breakfast. Along with reading the articles, Wendy will often peruse the comments from readers that follow the online article. This regularly leads to her sharing with me some of the more ridiculous comments people make. In rare cases, the comments become a rabbit hole we fall into.
Not once have I found it profitable to fall down that rabbit hole.
I love that I live in place where free speech is a foundational right. I have also learned along life’s road that wherever you find freedom you will also find indulgence. Freedom always comes with responsibility.
Paul writes today’s chapter from the antithesis of freedom. He is chained in a Roman dungeon. I find it fascinating therefore his final instructions to Timothy return three times to being careful with his investment of words. Paul reminds Timothy to avoid unprofitable “quarreling,”“chatter,” and “foolish and stupid arguments.” Paul tells Timothy “they are of no value.”
The further I progress on this earthly journey the more I find myself discerning what I really care about, what I find worthwhile, and those things that are worth the investment of my time, energy, and resources.
Words have value. They take time. They are an investment.
I don’t want to waste my words. I don’t want to waste my time on words that have little or no value for me or anyone else.
Thanks for investing in reading/listening to these words.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
“How beautiful are your tents, Jacob, your dwelling places, Israel!
“Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters. Water will flow from their buckets; their seed will have abundant water.” Numbers 24:5-7 (NIV)
Wendy and I are still amidst the slow process of addressing the contents of our lake house that was sold last December. This past weekend Wendy placed a shoebox on the kitchen island that contained all of the photos that we’d collected over 15 years and displayed on the walls there. I spent a little time digging through them. So many good times and memories with our family and dear friends. As Wendy and I paused to pray before breakfast yesterday, I felt a surge of gratitude for God’s goodness and blessing, and I expressed our thanks and praise.
Today’s chapter is a continuation of the story of Balak, King of Moab, and the spiritual guru for hire named Balaam whom he’s hired in hopes of cursing the Hebrew tribes camped in the wilderness and ensuring their defeat. Twice Balaam has gone through his pagan divination rituals only to have God demand from him a blessing for the Hebrews. Now, a third time, Balak demands a curse from the famous seer.
What’s interesting about this third oracle is that Balaam does not go through his normal pagan divination rituals. Instead, he “turned his face toward the wilderness” to look at the Hebrew camp. The Spirit of God comes upon him and he utters a word of prophecy like a true prophet of God and Israel. The Gentile pagan is used by God to bless His people, much like Zoroastrian astrologers from Persia showing up in Bethlehem to bless the infant Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. God is God. Throughout the Great Story God breaks standard operating procedures to use the most unlikely of individuals for His good purposes.
Balaam’s final message of blessing over Israel is fascinating when I meditate on the context. The Hebrew people are wanderers at this point in the story. They have no fortress. They have no palaces. They have no city walls or city gates. They are wayfaring strangers traveling through a wilderness of woe. But Balaam sees beauty in their tents, their tribes, and their families. The Hebrew people are a “garden” of goodness filled with a flowing abundance of love, joy, and shalom. Balaam sees the very thing God intended for His people all along and declared back at Mount Sinai before they set out. These people are different. God is with them. They are blessed.
As I meditate on these things in the quiet this morning, my mind wanders back to the photographs from fifteen years of family and friends at the lake. Good food, good drink, quiet conversations over coffee in the morning, laughter and the sharing of life over cigars and Scotch on the dock as the sun sets. So much love, joy, and shalom. Our tent was full of abundance of the things that matter most in life.
Our tent is still full of that goodness. Despite the fact that our season of having the lake house is over, our tent here in Pella is just as abundant with goodness. Just this past week Taylor and four of her girlfriends (and one baby girl), came to our house for a girls retreat. Wendy and I were so blessed to host them, to overhear their laughter and their tears as they made time to share life. In an hour or so Wendy and I will gather in the kitchen for our morning ritual of coffee, smoothies, the headlines, and the sharing of our lives together.
Shalom.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
This week I am prepping for a series of three messages I’ll give over the next three Sundays. One of the keys to the kick-off message this Sunday is not something that Jesus said, but what He chose to omit.
As I meditated on the episode between Jesus and the young man in today’s chapter, it occurred to me that it is an example of a lesson being in what was left out. History has dubbed this young man as the “rich young ruler,” but I think “eagle scout” is a more apt moniker. Yes, he was a wealthy eagle scout, but the young man had it in his head that God’s Kingdom is a meritocracy, and he had an his sash was packed with every possible merit badge. His question was “What good thing (singular) must I do to get eternal life?” The young man was a perfectionist driven mad by the possibility that there was one merit badge he was missing from his eagle scout sash.
When Jesus proclaims a list of commandments, He lists five of Moses’ Top Ten commandments, and one commandment that didn’t make Moses’ Top Ten but that Jesus elevated to the “essential two.” He conspicuously does not mention “don’t lust (e.g. covet) for what you don’t have.” When the eagle scout mentions that he has all of the merit badges Jesus has mentioned, Jesus gets right to the heart of the matter. “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus begins, using a word that translates “complete” and/or “whole.” Jesus then tells the man he’s going to have to experience the discomfort of lacking everything. In order to find that nagging one thing keeping him from meritorious perfection, the man is going to have to pawn his entire sash of merit badges along with everything else that he earned, gained, and valued in this life.
I’m reminded this morning of James’ words to the followers of Jesus who had lost everything and been scattered to the four winds because of persecution:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 (NIV)
James uses the same word (e.g. the Greek word teleios) that his brother used with the eagle scout. Being perfect, mature, spiritually whole, and spiritually complete demands the discomfort of losing what makes one most comfortable in this world.
In the quiet this morning, I’m equally reminded of an observation I’ve had on this earthly journey. People always want to generalize when human beings are complex beings of infinitely different sorts. The thing that made the meritorious eagle scout most comfortable may not be the same thing that makes me most comfortable. Jesus was pushing past the commandments to get the eagle scout to the spiritual principle to which the commandments were trying to lead. It’s the same principle He’d been teaching all along. Following Jesus is the way of the cross. The way of the cross is not a path of meritorious acquisition. It is a a path of total surrender.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Loyalty to a Trusted Source (CaD Jhn 3) –
Wayfarer
“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.” John 3:29 (NIV)
When I was a young man in my first full-time pastoral position, I served under a very wise and kind man named Bill. We were on opposite ends of our careers. I was hired as a youth pastor, fresh from school full of vim and vigor. Bill was in the final years of his pastoral career and planning for retirement. We were also from very different generations, and we were very different in our temperaments and styles of teaching. Nevertheless, we got along splendidly. He supported me and invested in me for the two years I was under his leadership. I loved him.
There was a church secretary at that time who didn’t like me at all. She wasn’t even a member of the church, but she made it abundantly clear on a daily basis that she was not a fan. In small, passive-aggressive ways she opposed me and used her position to set up obstacles at every opportunity.
One Sunday I had been asked to preach for Pastor Bill. It was a great Sunday, there was an outpouring of God’s Spirit and my message was enthusiastically received. The following morning, our entire staff joined in the break room for coffee time as we ritually did every weekday morning. My colleagues were very excited and complimentary about my message from the day before and the ways God’s Spirit had moved within the service. Pastor Bill joined in support, telling me what a good job I had done.
“I don’t know,” the secretary said in her usual sharp tone refusing to even look at me (which was also usual), “you don’t want him to be that good or people will want to hear him and not you.”
The entire staff sat in shocked silence, not believing that she had just said that out loud.
Pastor Bill smiled and responded, “No. We need enthusiastic and capable young men like Tom. There’s no competition. I couldn’t be more excited about what God is doing through him.”
I’ve forever been grateful for Pastor Bill’s resounding show of support for me in that moment.
Along my life journey, I’ve observed that people build up a sense of loyalty to voices that resonate with them. There’s a certain trust that is built, which can often result in mistrust of any other voices.
As Jesus began His earthly ministry, there were two predominant voices in the religious community in which He operated. The institutional voice of the ruling council was the most powerful and influential. For the non-conformists, the predominant voice was that of John the Baptist. Most of Jesus’ primary audience was divided in their loyalty to those two camps.
In today’s chapter, John addresses readers whose loyalty might lie in either of the two camps, but he’d already foreshadowed these tensions in the first two chapters. In the prologue, John addresses the conservative establishment crowd when he writes “[Jesus] came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” He then immediately addresses the non-conformist followers of John by stating clearly that John had testified, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” In the second chapter, John once again addresses the establishment crowd writing that, from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry the ruling religious leaders were against Jesus and refused to believe.
There are two episodes in today’s chapter. Nicodemus, a member of the Ruling Council, pays Jesus a visit. His visit makes clear that not all of the Council members were adamantly against Jesus. Jesus, however, makes clear that the establishment will not accept His teaching. John then switches again to John the Baptist who tells his followers that his job was to prepare the way for Jesus and point them to Jesus. He says that this job was “complete.” John was ensuring that whether his readers’ loyalty leaned left or right, those loyalties had to submit to believing in and following Jesus if one desired to be part of God’s kingdom.
Over the last five years, I’ve had a unique opportunity to coach and mentor a diverse number of gifted individuals both male and female, pastors and lay people in the art of preaching. I’ve learned that every voice resonates with different individuals while not resonating with others. There’s something beautiful and natural about this in the context of Jesus’ followers being different parts of one body. I have come to believe that God disperses the gift of preaching and teaching to many different individuals precisely because one voice may not resonate with every part of the body. I think it’s wise that my local gathering is rediscovering this truth.
As I have teamed up with a number of gifted individuals in this endeavor, I’ve often remembered Pastor Bill and that staff meeting years ago. Resonance may naturally create affinity and loyalty, but there is no competition. Like John, the job of the preacher is to point everyone to Jesus. When everyone understands and embraces this truth, there is no competition, only love and support.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ… Philippians 3:8 (NIV)
I have been so blessed on this earthly journey. I try to remember this always. I marvel at it and am so grateful for it. In my conversations with God I try to continually express my gratitude because I have done nothing to deserve any of it. I have simply tried to follow where God has led, and the Good Shepherd has led this lost sheep to some pretty green pastures. I am so thankful.
As the spiritual renovation of life has progressed I have increasingly come to understand and embrace one of the basic tenets of Jesus’ teaching. God’s ways run opposite of humanity’s ways. What this world values is not what God values, while what God values is given little or no consideration in the value system of this world.
“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.” -Jesus
Paul makes the same argument in today’s chapter as it relates to earthly status. He gives a brief version of his CV to the Philippians. In the Hebrew world of his day, Paul was a golden child. He was born into a good tribe, educated at the finest schools, was a member of the most prestigious organizations, and held important and powerful positions. In today’s terms it would be like having law degree and M.B.A. from Harvard and working for a prestigious firm on Wall Street or in Washington D.C. And, Paul writes, it’s all bullshit.
He really writes that. When Paul writes that he considers all this earthly status and prestige “garbage” he uses the Greek word skybalon. It’s a useful Greek word for labeling all sorts of rotten and decaying things. One of the things the word specifically referred to was cow dung. That’s what Paul thinks of all his earthly prestige.
As a disciple of Jesus, I increasingly understand the truth of this. All of my earthbound blessings, achievements, status, and possessions are eternally worthless in God’s economy. Jesus said that the real treasure, the stuff of true eternal worth in God’s Kingdom, is to know Him and in knowing Him to produce and flourish in relationship with others with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself once again taking stock of my own life. Where is my treasure? What is it I truly value? What is of eternal value?
How much of what I value is just bullshit?
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. “For whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is meaningless— a miserable business! Ecclesiastes 4:8 (NIV)
A few weeks ago I happened upon a post on LinkedIn. It was one of those heart-warming stories that almost sounds too good to be true. It made me curious. I dug into the story. I’d like to share with you what I learned.
Dale Schroeder was an Iowan from my hometown of Des Moines. He grew up poor, and couldn’t afford college. After high school he got a job as a carpenter and showed up at work every day for the same company for 67 years. It appears that retirement wasn’t something he considered worthwhile. Dale lived simply. He owned two pair of jeans. He had one pair of jeans for work and one pair of jeans for church.
One day, Dale showed up at the office of his friend and attorney. He told his friend he’d been thinking. He didn’t have the money to go to college and he’d like to give kids who couldn’t afford it the opportunity he never had. He wanted to set up a fund and invest all his savings for the project.
“How much are we talking, Dale?” his attorney asked.
“Oh, just shy of three million,” Dale answered.
Dale’s fund paid for the college education of 33 young people before the funds ran out. Calling themselves “Dale’s Kids” the strangers, who are now doctors, therapists, and teachers because of Dale’s gift, meet periodically to honor his legacy.
A simple man, Dale asked only one thing in return for his generosity. He asked that they pay-it-forward. “You can’t pay it back,” his attorney would explain, “because Dale is gone, but you can remember him and you can emulate him.”
If I pull back and look at today’s chapter from a distance, I find that the Sage has divided his wisdom into two parts. In verses 1-6, the Teacher describes the cold futility of self-centric lives and the tragic fruit of living lives of envy, greed, and hatred. In verses 7-16 the focus shifts. Verse 8 describes Dale sitting on his three million in the bank, asking himself “What am I going to do with all this money I’ve stored up my entire life?”
Verses 9-12 describes the value of living, not for self, but for another.
“Do something for someone else,” the Sage proposes as he whispers to me in my soul. “Invest the fruit of your labor into someone else’s need. Step out of the chill of self-centered isolation and warm another person with your kindness, then feel the warmth of their gratitude take the chill out of your own soul. Tom, if you look below in order to reach down and lift another person up your gaze won’t be fixated enviously on the height of other people’s stacks of stuff.”
In the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering Dale Schroeder showing up to work every day in his work jeans for 67 years in order to invest everything into the lives of 33 strangers. It’s an act of extravagant generosity that has not only changed the lives of those 33, but also their families, patients, students, and descendants. Who knows how it will be gratefully paid forward to affect the lives of countless others that you and I will never know about.
The Sage has me silently asking myself this morning:
“What is truly valuable in this life?”
“What does my life reveal about what I truly value?”
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.) Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?” But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright. Genesis 25:29-34 (NIV)
Back in the day, the age of thirteen meant you could bus tables in the restaurant industry. My buddy Doug talked me into applying to be a busboy at Campiano’s Italian Restaurant in Des Moines. I learned a ton of great life lessons doing that job.
It happened to be payday one evening as Doug and I worked together. I’m not sure who’s idea it was, but we were suddenly floating the idea of having dinner together after our shift. There was something in this idea that felt revolutionary; The invisible bus boys at the bottom of the employee food chain would be the honored customers. One of the waitresses, (I still remember her name was Karen) heard us talking about it and offered to serve us and take really good care of us. So, we did it. We spent our entire two-week paycheck on one meal.
On the surface, the decision seems kind of foolish. If one is merely talking about fiscal responsibility then I agree that it was a foolish choice. Looking back, however, I have never, ever forgotten that meal on that night. That meal was an investment in intangibles that I now look back on with honor.
That meal, and Karen’s humble generosity, taught me that I was just as valuable as any of the rich customers I cleaned up after each night. The true difference, that I so often felt, was not about age or economic status, but in attitude and perception. That meal taught me that sometimes an experience has a value that can’t be calculated by the prices on the menu. It was formative in teaching me the joy of being with good people around a table where good food and drink are gratefully savored as well as the company and the conversation. Things I highly value today.
Today’s chapter begins and ends with contrasting stories. As part of the cultural solidifying of Isaac assuming the position as Abraham’s sole heir, Abraham sends away potential rivals, including children that he’d fathered with concubines. Culturally, Abraham had no responsibility to these sons. They were merely servants in the social pecking order. Abraham, however, gives them gifts as he sends them on their way. In the culture of that day, this was an act of extraordinary and unexpected generosity. It spoke to me of Abraham’s heart and the things he valued.
By the end of the chapter, we’ve quickly been introduced to Isaac’s twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first, and so he is the heir apparent to succeed his father as sole heir and the paterfamilias. Esau arrives at camp after a long hunt and he’s really hungry. He’s so hungry he makes an exaggerated statement about starving to death. His younger twin brother, Jacob, offers to serve his twin brother some food in exchange for Esau’s birthright as the firstborn. It strikes me as Shakespearean, selling your birthright for a bowl of soup. It says something about what Esau valued, and didn’t value.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself mulling over my choice to spend an entire two-week paycheck on that steak dinner. In the grand scheme of things, it was of little financial consequence in comparison to the value I found in the experience and the character lessons it afforded me. Esau’s decision, on the other hand, was of great consequence. A life-changing (history-changing) decision was made in a momentary desire to appease a daily appetite.
I make value judgments every day. What do my decisions and choices reveal about what I value, and what I don’t?
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. “For whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is meaningless— a miserable business! Ecclesiastes 4:8 (NIV)
A few weeks ago I happened upon a post on LinkedIn. It was one of those heart-warming stories that almost sounds too good to be true. It made me curious. I dug into the story. I’d like to share with you what I learned.
Dale Schroeder was an Iowan from my hometown of Des Moines. He grew up poor, and couldn’t afford college. After high school he got a job as a carpenter and showed up at work every day for the same company for 67 years. It appears that retirement wasn’t something he considered worthwhile. Dale lived simply. He owned two pair of jeans. He had one pair of jeans for work and one pair of jeans for church.
One day, Dale showed up at the office of his friend and attorney. He told his friend he’d been thinking. He didn’t have the money to go to college and he’d like to give kids who couldn’t afford it the opportunity he never had. He wanted to set up a fund and invest all his savings for the project.
“How much are we talking, Dale?” his attorney asked.
“Oh, just shy of three million,” Dale answered.
Dale’s fund paid for the college education of 33 young people before the funds ran out. Calling themselves “Dale’s Kids” the strangers, who are now doctors, therapists, and teachers because of Dale’s gift, meet periodically to honor his legacy.
A simple man, Dale asked only one thing in return for his generosity. He asked that they pay-it-forward. “You can’t pay it back,” his attorney would explain, “because Dale is gone, but you can remember him and you can emulate him.”
If I pull back and look at today’s chapter from a distance, I find that the Sage has divided his wisdom into two parts. In verses 1-6, the Teacher describes the cold futility of self-centric lives and the tragic fruit of living lives of envy, greed, and hatred. In verses 7-16 the focus shifts. Verse 8 describes Dale sitting on his three million in the bank, asking himself “What am I going to do with all this money I’ve stored up my entire life?”
Verses 9-12 describes the value of living, not for self, but for another.
“Do something for someone else,” the Sage proposes as he whispers to me in my soul. “Invest the fruit of your labor into someone else’s need. Step out of the chill of self-centered isolation and warm another person with your kindness, then feel the warmth of their gratitude take the chill out of your own soul. Tom, if you look below in order to reach down and lift another person up your gaze won’t be fixated enviously on the height of other people’s stacks of stuff.”
In the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering Dale Schroeder showing up to work every day in his work jeans for 67 years in order to invest everything into the lives of 33 strangers. It’s an act of extravagant generosity that has not only changed the lives of those 33, but also their families, patients, students, and descendants. Who knows how it will be gratefully paid forward to affect the lives of countless others that you and I will never know about.
The Sage has me silently asking myself this morning:
“What is truly valuable in this life?”
“What does my life reveal about what I truly value?”
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands. Psalm 135:15 (NIV)
Wendy and I returned last night from our “spring break” in which we spent a long weekend getting our Playhouse at the lake opened up and ready for the coming summer. Our friends joined us for a weekend of hard work, a long task list of chores, along with good meals and time together in the evenings. We arrived home last night with aching muscles and weary bones, but our souls were overflowing.
Our place at the lake was not something which Wendy and I long-planned or even desired. Looking back, it was one of those things on life’s road that just sort of unexpectedly falls into place and you realize in retrospect that it was meant to be part of the story in ways you could never have foreseen. We have had our ups and downs with it. In fact, on more than one occasion we’ve felt strongly that it wasn’t what we desired at all. Yet in each case, we were given the assurance that we were to stay the course.
This past weekend, I had a lot of time to contemplate as I spent a number of hours sequestered in the isolation of my earplugs and the din of the power washer as I sprayed siding, windows, trim, decks, docks, and sidewalks. I have thoroughly enjoyed all the blessings that have come with the place over the years. It’s not, however, about the thing or the things that come with it. What I really treasure about the place has no worldly value. I can’t buy family or friendship. I can’t use legacy or cherished memories as collateral. Purpose, quiet, rest, laughter, peace, relationship, intimacy, conversation, and healing will never appear on an appraisal when it’s time for this chapter of the story to end. Yet, that’s what I value so much that our “spring break” was spent working our butts off.
Today’s chapter, Psalm 135, is an ancient Hebrew song that was sung as part of the temple liturgy. It’s a recounting of history and a celebration of God. As I came to the verse that says, “The idols of the nations are silver and gold,” it resonated with power-washing ruminations. There are lots of things that I observe are valued in this world, especially in a place like the lake. They are the things of silver and gold, made with human hands. And, that prompts in me continuous soul-searching.
On the drive home last night, Wendy and I spent time talking through the various intimate conversations we enjoyed with our friends this past weekend as we worked together, ate together, and rested together. Wendy talked about the unique struggles each person and each couple are going through on our respective way-points on Life’s road. We prayed together for our friends. I treasure these moments, conversations, meals, rest, and friends. Not silver and gold, but spirit, flesh, and relationship.
In the quiet this morning, I return to the routine. I find myself thankful for my many blessings which include a place on the lake (that requires up-keep and work weekends) and really good companions on life’s journey with whom to share both the labor and leisure. And, I find myself praying to always treasure those things that have no tangible value in this world.
When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. Acts 16:19 (NIV)
I’m writing this morning’s post in the airport. Having wrapped up a week-long business trip I’m headed home. I spent the week serving a client in the financial sector. As I meditate on all that I’ve done this week, the teams I’ve worked with, the managers I’ve mentored, a common theme has been money.
Agents leaving their jobs to go to another company to make more money.
A manager who told me she’s turned down multiple job offers, including one that promised to double her pay, because she was happy in her job and her father taught her that more money was a foolish reason to leave a job you loved.
A young man telling me about his job scrutinizing the flow of money for potential threats.
A manager struggling to find new hires because most applicants have such poor credit histories from the way they handle their money.
An agent at a restaurant with his boss, an award he’d received for his exceptional customer service, looks at the menu and then asks how much money he could spend.
All these little moments come back to me as I think about today’s chapter. Until this point in the history of the early Jesus Movement the conflicts (and there has been a lot of conflict) have been theological in nature between the Jewish tribe from which the Jesus movement sprang, the orthodox Jews who viewed the Jesus movement as a threatening heresy, and the explosive growth of non-Jewish believers who had no interest in holding to Jewish traditions.
In yesterday’s post I mentioned that there had been an inflection point, and today’s chapter begins to hint at the differences that are beginning to emerge. Paul and his companion, Silas, are in the town of Philippi sharing the Message of Jesus. A conflict arises in which Paul and Silas are accosted, beaten, threatened, accused, and thrown into the local jail. The conflict wasn’t about theology, however, it was about money.
A young slave girl, possessed by an evil spirit, was a capable and profitable fortune-teller because of the presence of the evil spirit indwelling her. She was also so annoying that Paul commands the spirit to leave the girl in the name of Jesus. The spirit leaves. You’d think that this was a good thing, but not for the slave girl’s owners. No spirit, no fortune-telling. Paul and Silas, these out-of-town street preachers had effectively screwed with the business and cash-flow of an upstanding member of the Philippi Chamber of Commerce.
You want to stir up trouble for yourself? Visit a strange town and mess with a local businessman’s cash-flow. As my week conducting business with my client reminds me this morning it’s always about money.
I sit this morning amidst the hustle and bustle of business travelers scurrying about in a major international airport. I’m reminded that Jesus said more about money than almost anything else. He used stories of money in parables because he knew that everyone could relate. He compared the spiritual desire we should have for the Kingdom of God to the frantic search of a poor woman for her lost savings. And of course, there’s that uncomfortable bit Jesus had to say about money being the number one thing that distracts us from that which is of eternal value.
This week as I sat in mentoring sessions with managers and supervisors, I found it fascinating that most of them came to our sessions with things that they wanted to talk with me about. For one it was the break-up of a long-term relationship, for another it was managing conflict within a personal relationship, and for another it was about a struggle to remain sober. Funny, the things with which they were ultimately concerned were not about business leadership and finance, though we did talk about those things. What they were frantic about was not about money, but about life and relationships and matters of Spirit.
Me too.
It’s been a good business trip, but now I’m headed…
Home, where my thoughts escapin’ Home, where my music’s playin’ Home, where m’love lies waiting silently for me.
